commanded twice the amount
of the necessaries of life which could have been obtained for the wages
paid under Edward the Third." In a century and a half serfdom had almost
vanished.

Thus ended the greatest peasant outbreak that England ever knew. The
outbreak of Jack Cade, which took place seventy years afterwards, was
for political rather than industrial reform. During those seventy years
the condition of the working-classes had greatly improved, and the
occasion for industrial revolt correspondingly decreased.

_THE WHITE ROSE OF ENGLAND._

The wars of the White and the Red Roses were at an end, Lancaster had
triumphed over York, Richard III., the last of the Plantagenets, had
died on Bosworth field, and the Red Rose candidate, Henry VII., was on
the throne. It seemed fitting, indeed, that the party of the red should
bear the banners of triumph, for the frightful war of white and red had
deluged England with blood, and turned to crimson the green of many a
fair field. Two of the White Rose claimants of the throne, the sons of
Edward IV., had been imprisoned by Richard III. in the Tower of London,
and, so said common report, had been strangled in their beds. But their
fate was hidden in mystery, and there were those who believed that the
princes of the Tower still lived.

One claimant to the throne, a scion of the White Rose kings, Edward,
Earl of Warwick, was still locked up in the Tower, so closely kept from
human sight and knowledge as to leave the field open to the claims of
imposture. For suddenly a handsome youth appeared in Ireland declaring
that he was the Earl of Warwick, escaped from the Tower, and asking aid
to help him regain the throne, which he claimed as rightfully his. The
story of this boy is a short one; the end of his career fortunately a
comedy instead of a tragedy. In Ireland were many adherents of the house
of York. The story of the handsome lad was believed; he was crowned at
Dublin,--the crown being taken from the head of a statue of the Virgin
Mary,--and was then carried home on the shoulders of a gigantic Irish
chieftain, as was the custom in green Erin in those days.

The youthful claimant had entered Ireland with a following of two
thousand German soldiers, provided by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy,
sister of Edward IV., who hated Henry VII. and all the party of
Lancaster with an undying hatred. From Ireland he invaded England, with
an Irish following added to his German. His s